We, the Israeli public, have always been exemplary examples of sacrifice and resiliency in response to the incessant wars and terror dating back to well before the establishment of the state of Israel.
During the years of the suicide terrorists blowing up buses at a rate of two per day, and now during the intermittent missile attacks in which hundreds of rockets and missiles rain down on the cities and communities in southern Israel, we always exhibited the individual and communal resilience that had us get up the following morning and continue on with our lives, unwilling to give in to this abnormal situation.
Is this response of moving on with our lives, as if nothing can stop us, a normal and a proportional response?
Why do the people of other nations in the Western World demand that their elected political leadership put an immediate end to danger that threatens the well-being of citizens? Should the Israeli public continue to "bite its tongue", and simply wait patiently for quiet - before the next round of missile attacks begins a few months from now?
Are we, the Israeli public, letting our political leaders off the hook by not demanding an end to the missile terror once and for all? Why is it that the public media, the movers and shakers of public opinion, never demand of the army or the Prime Minister the destruction of the ability of the Palestinian Arabs in Gaza to threaten southern Israel?
What we are witnessing here is a convergence of interests, between those who have been forcing Israel and the Israeli public to accept Palestinian independence in Gaza - which has only meant one thing, the right of terrorists to shoot at Jews with impunity - and those who wish give them Judea and Samaria.
These very same political leaders, President Obama and other European leaders and NGO's, are also the first who harp on the evils of the “occupation” or speak of forcing Israeli withdrawals to save the country from itself. They have rarely considered the consequences of what de facto Palestinian independence in Gaza has meant to Israel.
Alongside these naive believers in [unattainable] peace in the Middle East, we have the massive Israeli investment in protective zones being built adjacent to all homes and public buildings in the South of Israel, coupled with years of resiliency training, teaching the public to cope and respond effectively to the anxiety and trauma of war and terror. All this is making us empowered, resilient, and regretfully, complacent.
While Israel's critics continue to ignore Gaza and the missile attacks on Israel when they speak of the need to relinquish Israeli land for "peace" so as to foster Palestinian self-determination - despite this being expressed solely through terrorism - the Israeli public is inundated with assistance to help it cope with the abnormal and impossible situation of living under constant threat and intermittent rocket attacks every few months.
What we have is an ongoing effort by those who refuse to admit the undeniable truth and continue to demand that Israel withdraw completely from Judea and Samaria, including East Jerusalem, as they did from Gaza in 2005. The lessons of that failed experiment must not be forgotten.
We, the Israeli public and its supporters, must understand that to remain quiet and complacent means perpetuating the current situation. We are enabling the false messiahs of land for peace and the two state solution to continue and force us, the Israeli public, to live with the real implications of making "peace" with the Palestinian Arabs -- that is, learning to live with eternal war and terror.
This is the lesson of the ongoing missile attacks on Southern Israel and this is the future legacy that we are forcing on future generations.